Explorers discovered the John V. Moran shipwreck in Lake Michigan off the coast of Muskegon last month, more than a century since it sank in the lake.
The Moran was a 214-foot steamer built in 1888. It was traveling from Milwaukee to Muskegon with a load of flour, oil cake, animal feed, peas and other cargo across ice-covered waters. It was last seen on February 12, 1899, according to Mlive.
Explorers from the Michigan Shipwreck Research Association combed through a 10-square-mile grid in the lake using a side-scan sonar in search of the John V. Moran shipwreck.
"The John V. Moran has been on our hit list for quite a while," said MSRA codirector Craig Rich. "We've quietly been researching it, and decided this year we'd go out after it," he told Detroit Free Press.
Despite the lack of details from the 1899 accounts about the sinking of the steam ship, Rich and his team were able to narrow down the search area and set off for the expedition. They were prepared to spend a full week to look for the Moran.
And they found it.
"It was 3:30 in the morning on June 5 when several of our crew members were asleep," said MSRA codirector Valerie van Heest. "All of the sudden, the boat operator saw something on side-scan, and woke everybody up in the dark of night," she told Detroit Free Press.
Van Heest said they were not sure if the sonar image was that of the Moran, but it was definitely a shipwreck, and a big one. The best way to identify the wreck was to go down in the water.
However, because the wreck was situated 365 feet deep - just several feet shy of the Carl D. Bradley, the deepest wreck explored by divers in Lake Michigan, which is 380 miles deep - the MSRA crew sought help from the Michigan State Police Underwater Recovery Unit.
The police lent their remotely operated submersible, which gave MSRA its first look at the shipwreck in mid-July. They saw the Moran sitting upright on the lake bottom. It was still intact, and not a part seemed to be missing save for its smokestack.
Rich said most ships suffer from severe damage when they sink. However, this was not the case for the Moran, which was damaged when ice bore a hole in the hull and caused water to come in, suggesting that the water slowly filled the ship, making it sink gently.
"Not a railing is missing. The mast is standing. The lights are standing. The anchors are in position. There's even glass still in the windows," said Rich.
Van Heest described the ship as looking "hardly worse for wear after 116 years in the bottom." She said the Moran is, so far, the best preserved wreck ever discovered in the Great Lakes, according to MSRA website.
MSRA will send divers to explore the shipwreck when warmer weather sets in, possibly in August in September, according to MSRA website.
